28:9 Will you still say, “I am a god,” before the one who kills you –
though you are a man and not a god –
when you are in the power of those who wound you?
40:9 Do you have an arm as powerful as God’s, 3
and can you thunder with a voice like his?
31:3 The Egyptians are mere humans, not God;
their horses are made of flesh, not spirit.
The Lord will strike with 4 his hand;
the one who helps will stumble
and the one being helped will fall.
Together they will perish. 5
45:9 One who argues with his creator is in grave danger, 6
one who is like a mere 7 shard among the other shards on the ground!
The clay should not say to the potter, 8
“What in the world 9 are you doing?
Your work lacks skill!” 10
13:21 What will you say 11 when the Lord 12 appoints as rulers over you those allies
that you, yourself, had actually prepared as such? 13
Then anguish and agony will grip you
like that of a woman giving birth to a baby. 14
13:1 The Lord said to me, “Go and buy some linen shorts 15 and put them on. 16 Do not put them in water.” 17
1 tn Heb “every spirit will be dim.”
2 sn This expression depicts in a very vivid way how they will be overcome with fear. See the note on the same phrase in 7:17.
3 tn Heb “do you have an arm like God?” The words “as powerful as” have been supplied in the translation to clarify the metaphor.
4 tn Heb “will extend”; KJV, ASV, NASB, NCV “stretch out.”
5 tn Heb “together all of them will come to an end.”
6 tn Heb “Woe [to] the one who argues with the one who formed him.”
7 tn The words “one who is like a mere” are supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons and clarification.
8 tn Heb “Should the clay say to the one who forms it?” The rhetorical question anticipates a reply, “Of course not!”
9 tn The words “in the world” are supplied in the translation to approximate in English idiom the force of the sarcastic question.
10 tn Heb “your work, there are no hands for it,” i.e., “your work looks like something made by a person who has no hands.”
11 tn Or perhaps more rhetorically equivalent, “Will you not be surprised?”
12 tn The words “The
13 tn Or “to be rulers.” The translation of these two lines is somewhat uncertain. The sentence structure of these two lines raises problems in translation. The Hebrew text reads: “What will you do when he appoints over you [or punishes you (see BDB 823 s.v. פָּקַד Qal.B.2 for the former, Qal.A.3 for the latter)] and you, yourself, taught them over you friends [or chiefs (see BDB 48 s.v. I אַלּוּף 2 and Ps 55:13 for the former and BDB 49 s.v. II אַלּוּף and Exod 15:15 for the latter)] for a head.” The translation assumes that the clause “and you, yourself, taught them [= made them accustomed, i.e., “prepared”] [to be] over you” is parenthetical coming between the verb “appoint” and its object and object modifier (i.e., “appointed over you allies for rulers”). A quick check of other English versions will show how varied the translation of these lines has been. Most English versions seem to ignore the second “over you” after “you taught them.” Some rearrange the text to get what they think is a sensible meaning. For a fairly thorough treatment see W. McKane, Jeremiah (ICC), 1:308-10.
14 tn Heb “Will not pain [here = mental anguish] take hold of you like a woman giving birth.” The question is rhetorical expecting a positive answer.
15 tn The term here (אֵזוֹר, ’ezor) has been rendered in various ways: “girdle” (KJV, ASV), “waistband” (NASB), “waistcloth” (RSV), “sash” (NKJV), “belt” (NIV, NCV, NLT), and “loincloth” (NAB, NRSV, NJPS, REB). The latter is more accurate according to J. M. Myers, “Dress and Ornaments,” IDB 1:870, and W. L. Holladay, Jeremiah (Hermeneia), 1:399. It was a short, skirt-like garment reaching from the waist to the knees and worn next to the body (cf. v. 9). The modern equivalent is “shorts” as in TEV/GNB, CEV.
16 tn Heb “upon your loins.” The “loins” were the midriff of the body from the waist to the knees. For a further discussion including the figurative uses see, IDB, “Loins,” 3:149.
17 tn Or “Do not ever put them in water,” i.e., “Do not even wash them.”
18 tc Some of the better representatives of the Alexandrian and Western texts have a passive verb here instead of the active ἀποκατήλλαξεν (apokathllaxen, “he has reconciled”): ἀποκατηλλάγητε (apokathllaghte) in (Ì46) B, ἀποκατήλλακται [sic] (apokathllaktai) in 33, and ἀποκαταλλαγέντες (apokatallagente") in D* F G. Yet the active verb is strongly supported by א A C D2 Ψ 048 075 [0278] 1739 1881 Ï lat sy. Internally, the passive creates an anacoluthon in that it looks back to the accusative ὑμᾶς (Juma", “you”) of v. 21 and leaves the following παραστῆσαι (parasthsai) dangling (“you were reconciled…to present you”). The passive reading is certainly the harder reading. As such, it may well explain the rise of the other readings. At the same time, it is possible that the passive was produced by scribes who wanted some symmetry between the ποτε (pote, “at one time”) of v. 21 and the νυνὶ δέ (nuni de, “but now”) of v. 22: Since a passive periphrastic participle is used in v. 21, there may have a temptation to produce a corresponding passive form in v. 22, handling the ὑμᾶς of v. 21 by way of constructio ad sensum. Since παραστῆσαι occurs ten words later, it may not have been considered in this scribal modification. Further, the Western reading (ἀποκαταλλαγέντες) hardly seems to have arisen from ἀποκατηλλάγητε (contra TCGNT 555). As difficult as this decision is, the preferred reading is the active form because it is superior externally and seems to explain the rise of all forms of the passive readings.